In a startling new development, the interim Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) chief Nageswara Rao has ordered the transfer of twenty officers on Monday. The transfer orders from the interim director comes just three days before a high-powered Selection Committee led by the Prime Minister is scheduled to meet on Thursday to find a new CBI chief.
Investigating officer SK Nair who was examining the cases of loan fraud against Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi is included in the list of officers who have received transfer orders. He has been transferred to the Anti-Corruption Bureau in Mumbai. Replacing him is A Saravanan – a superintendent of police investigating the Sterlite case from Chennai. Another officer who has been transferred is Vivek Priyadarshi. He was leading the probe into the 2G spectrum scam.
The order notes that officers who have been ‘specially named’ by any constitutional court to ‘supervise, discharge and inquire’ into any case shall continue to discharge their duties.
This is not the first time that Nageswara Rao has signed transfer orders that generated controversies. On October 23, he had ordered transfers at 2 AM in the morning upon taking over as the interim CBI chief after the then chief of the central investigating agency chief Alok Verma was asked to go on leave following a government order.
Verma had challenged the decision of his removal and was granted partial relief by the Supreme Court. He went to work for two days before he was transferred again by the Narendra Modi-led committee. During this period of time, he stalled the transfer of officials on his team as ordered by Rao. His decisions were set aside once Nageswara Rao was reinstated as the CBI chief.
Rao’s own appointment has been challenged by a petition in the Supreme Court by Common Cause – an NGO. The process of ‘short-listing, selecting and appointing’ the CBI director should remain a transparent process, as per the filed plea.
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